Financial Integration:
Same-gender and
Mixed-gender Couples


Joanna R. Pepin

University of Toronto


Chandler Fairbanks

University at Buffalo (SUNY)

Income pooling is associated with

  • relationship stability
    (Eickmeyer et al. 2019)

  • relationship quality
    (Sassler & Addo, 2010)

A greater proportion of married mixed-gender couples pool money than married same-gender couples

Research Questions

  1. Is the gap in income pooling accounted for by variation in demographic characteristics?
  2. Do the associations between pooling and relationship stability and quality vary by the gender composition of the couple?

NCHAT

National Couples’ Health and Time Study 2020-2021

a nationally representative sample of U.S. couples aged 20–60
N = 3,348






Key Variables

  • Dependent Variable:
    (0) Not pooling all money and (1) Full pooling system

  • Couple Type:
    (1) Man with woman, (2) Woman with man, (3) Man with man, and (4) Woman with woman

  • Marital Status:
    (1) Cohabiting (2) Married

  • Work-Family Arrangement:
    (1) Both full-time (2) Full-time/part-time (3) Full-time/not employed

Relationship Quality Scales


Instability

  • feeling trapped
  • think will eventually breakup
  • thought relationship is in trouble

Dissatisfaction

  • happiness with relationship
  • warm and comfortable relationship
  • relationship is rewarding
  • relationship satisfaction

Negativity

  • little arguments escalated
  • partner criticism
  • partner viewed words or actions negatively
  • one of us withdrew when argued

Findings

Key descriptive statistics

Man with woman Woman with man Man with man Woman with woman
Married 82 81 52 67
Parent 44 47 4.1 21
White (NH) 55 57 68 65
Full-time/not employed 27 31 25 18
Instability (0-16) 2.12 (3.10) 2.11 (3.25) 2.95 (3.52) 2.36 (2.98)
Dissatisfaction (0-21) 5.7 (4.5) 6.1 (4.7) 6.7 (4.2) 6.3 (5.2)
Negativity (0-15) 3.1 (3.2) 3.2 (3.6) 3.4 (3.3) 3.7 (3.2)

Same-gender couples less likely than mixed-gender couples to report full financial pooling


Odds Ratio S.E.
Reference: Man with woman
Woman with man 0.94 (0.11)
Man with man 0.61 (0.14) *
Woman with woman 0.49 (0.11) **

Married women-women couples less likely to pool all money than mixed-gender couples

Take-away statement here

Women-women couples less likely to pool all money than mixed-gender couples

at average levels of __________

Variation in probability of pooling by couple-type and relationship scales

Implications

  • Couple-type gap in pooling is not explained by demographic differences, nor necessarily indicative of lower relationship stability and quality.
  • Relationship stability and quality might be differently associated with financial integration among all couples.